


Define 'Is'

by abundantlyqueer



Series: Clueverse [3]
Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-11-16
Updated: 2003-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-13 01:18:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/131222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abundantlyqueer/pseuds/abundantlyqueer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Dom lifts his arms above his head, leans back in his chair, and stretches mightily, spine arched and chin lifted so that when he speaks he's addressing the ceiling, if not some even higher power. "I need a boyfriend," he yawns.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Define 'Is'

**Author's Note:**

> A companion story to "Okay"in the sense that it takes place earlier the same day in the same universe, and addresses a very different version of the same problem.

Dom crawls out of bed a little after one (though, more accurately, it's kind of a drop and spill rather than a crawl, because he's forgotten that the bed in his hotel room is bizarrely high, like a sacrificial altar). He stumbles around in the half-gloom of dark drapes drawn against bright daylight, finds his bag, snags a pair of clean underwear, and manages to get them on without falling on his ass. He picks up his jeans from the floor, peering at them in the dark to confirm there's nothing worse on them than beer stains and a smudgy phone number written in permanent marker across the left hip to testify to last night's activities.  
Dom dredges coins and wadded up notes and gum wrappers and an unopened condom sachet out of the pockets and drags the jeans on. He picks up and discards several shirts from the floor before resorting to opening up the enormous built-in closet and yanking his last clean tee shirt off the solitary heavy wooden suit hanger on the rail. Dom swipes the garment under his arms and into the gluey corners of his eyes, realizes what he's just done, flips the shirt inside out and puts it on that way.  
He wanders around looking for sneakers or sandals or something, simultaneously patting and tugging at his hair in an attempt to reconcile the side that's stuck out like porcupine quills and the side that's clinging flat to his head where he slept on it. He eventually locates a pair of lace-less sneakers under the bed and shoves his bare feet into them.  
The hotel dining room serves brunch until three in the afternoon on weekends, so Dom's feeling pretty flush with early-bird virtue when he sits down to a triple shot latte at one twenty-five, unwashed, unshaven, but practically fully dressed.  
"Look atch'yeh, yeh're disgustin'," Billy grins, slapping his newspaper down on the corner of the table and dropping into the seat opposite Dom.  
Dom considers Billy balefully. Billy's fair brown hair is shining like fluffy corn silk. He's clean-shaven and clear skinned; his glass-green eyes are bright and limpid. He's wearing a bright blue crisp cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a pair of very faded very clean blue jeans. He looks, Dom thinks, good enough to eat with a spoon – assuming you can keep solid food down, which Dom's not sure he can right now.  
"Y'want somethin'?" Dom asks, indicating his coffee.  
"Thanks, no, I've already had mah lunch."  
"Y'left so fuckin' early last night," Dom complains. "What was it? Seven o'clock? Time for your fuckin' tea?"  
"I left at eleven," Billy says, smiling patiently. "Yeh know I always like to be in mah bed before eleven thirty, or I'm all outta sorts the next day."  
"Was she gorgeous?"  
"Who?"  
"The bird who had you in your bed before eleven thirty."  
"There was n'bird."  
"Y'didn't pull?" Dom says, sounding faintly disappointed.  
Billy doesn't grace that with an answer, just arches his eyebrows and tucks the corners of his mouth up in a sly little smile.  
"No excuse?" Dom prods.  
"I don' need an excuse; I'm thirty," Billy says blithely. "I'm entitled to enjoy the very natural if somewhat tragic reduction of mah vital forces."  
"Are you sayin' you can't get it up anymore?" Dom demands bleakly.  
"I'm not sayin' any such thing!" Billy protests hastily. "I'll have yeh know I'm fully functional, thank yeh very fuckin' much."  
"Oh. You're saying you just can't pull anymore."  
"I'm sayin'," Billy says pointedly, "Not all of us hafta run abou' like a wee terrier in heat in order to have a good time."  
"Yeah, Lijah can be such a twat," Dom says sagely.  
Billy snorts derisively.  
"Wha' abou' yer night? Was he gorgeous?"  
"Who?"  
"The fella that had yeh in bed before four in the morning. Assumin' it _was_ before four in the morning."  
Dom lifts his arms above his head, leans back in his seat, and stretches mightily, spine arched and chin lifted so that when he speaks he's addressing the ceiling, if not some even higher power.  
"I need a boyfriend," he yawns.  
He collapses forwards again, tipping his head from side to side to knock the crick out.  
"I can't work these insane hours and give the kind of Oscar-winning performance I'm capable of if I'm also living the playboy lifestyle I'm currently enjoying," he says, with the air of someone making a slightly painful confession. "I need someone I can go home to. Someone who'll understand my little ways, someone I can be comfortable with, y'know, just hanging out, talkin' … "  
"Someone yeh can get inta bed wi'out havin' to ply wi' alcohol first?" Billy prompts.  
Dom waggles his eyebrows lewdly, but then plants both elbows on the table, sets his chin in his hands, heaves an epic sigh, and gazes thoughtfully into Billy's face.  
"I need … someone patient, someone mature without being stuffy."  
"Astin."  
"He's married. Also, not gay. Someone who gets my sense of humor, but doesn't expect me to be a clown every minute of the day."  
"Elijah."  
"Nah, he's too sharp – I need someone I can wheedle if I have to. Also, not gay. Someone I won't get tired of, someone who's really fuckin' hot."  
"Orlando. So they tell me."  
"He's certifiably insane. Also, incredible though I find it, not _actually_ gay. Someone interesting, y'know? Someone who can tell a story."  
"Ian."  
"How'bout it Bills?"  
"How abou' wha'?" Billy asks suspiciously.  
"Will you be my boyfriend?"  
Billy looks at Dom, knowing that outraged protest will achieve less than nothing.  
"Dom," Billy says eventually, "I'm very flattered – well, actually, no I'm not, I'm sorta nauseated, but still. But, yeh hafta understand, it'd never work out. For one thing, I'm not gay either."  
Dom thinks about this for a while, still staring at Billy, while Billy tries to maintain a benign mixture of patience and amusement and understanding.  
"You're not gay. That's your final answer?"  
"Thank yeh, Regis, tha' is very fuckin' definitely mah final answer."  
"So … it's not the fact that I'm a foul-mouthed, frequently unwashed, underwear recycling slob who eats his own eye-snot? Or that I'm a pervy slag who'll have pretty much any guy that asks, barring they're ugly as fuck or smell as bad as I do right now? Or that I'm a selfish, demanding bastard with no tolerance for delayed gratification but a remarkable talent for getting what I want by a skillful blend of whining and suckin' cock? It's only that you're not gay? That's the insurmountable obstacle?"  
Billy opens his mouth, but there's nothing to say, because fuck it's not that he meant to imply that, it's that he just … implied that.  
Dom's mouth twists into a lopsided smile, then a shit-eating grin, and there's flint sparks snapping in his steely gray eyes.  
"Well, y'know," he shrugs, "a lovin' relationship means learning to accept each other's differences. We'll manage."  



End file.
